Marcus Mecum - Picture It Finished
Let’s read Zechariah 4:6. This group of scriptures may be some of the best that you can find. I know that, all of it’s good but these are really good. «So he answered and said to me, 'this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, 'not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, ' says the Lord of hosts. 'who are you, o great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the capstone amid shouts of 'grace, grace to it'»! Why don’t you do that with me real quick? Why don’t you shout, «Grace, grace». Grace is mentioned 125 times in your Bible so I think we can agree that it’s an important subject. Sixteen of the 21 epistles Paul would begin by saying, «Grace be unto you».
Ephesians talks about the richness, or the riches, or the glory of his grace. Hebrews says to us that we come boldly to his throne of grace in our time of need. So grace is an important thing to understand. And we’re going to look at how the grace of God was at work in the story that we just read. There’s four types of grace that everyone has to grab a hold of. There is, first of all, saving grace. We’re saved by grace through faith. You’re not saved through your works, you’re not saved through your efforts. It’s not like you can maybe do enough good things, or be a good enough person. This is a deception that a lot of people buy into that they think, «Well, if I’m good enough in life, if I’m a good enough person, then I think that God’s gonna be good with me».
But the problem is, is there is nothing to your goodness that you can pass that threshold. Like they’re, you can’t get to this point where you’re like, «Okay, I’ve put enough good in, now God’s good with me. Now I’m saved». Your works don’t save you, you’re saved by grace that’s undeserved, unmerited. And the Bible is clear that that is the only way salvation happens. It does not happen because you’re righteous enough. It’s not like 99% grace, 1% work. There’s nothing you could add or take away from Calvary. On the cross, Jesus finished it all. That’s what he said. He said, «It is finished». It was a declaration that you don’t do, do, do, to get right with God. It’s been done, done, done. That’s Calvary.
And now, you can be saved not because you deserved it but because Jesus earned it, worked for it, fought for it, bled for it, was beat for it, on Calvary. That’s the work that was needed for you and I to have right standing with God. Jesus provided a way for you to be saved, through grace. Got it? Then there’s justifying grace. Justifying grace is, a good way to think about it is, just as if I’d never sinned. So, you’ve sinned, I’ve sinned, but we can’t come into the presence of a holy God with sin, we’d die if we come into his presence with sin. So, justifying grace allows us to enter God’s presence and when he sees us he doesn’t see our sin, he actually sees grace that was purchased when Jesus died on the cross. His blood is actually what God sees.
So, we come into God’s throne room through justifying grace. Now, what happens is, the enemy whispers in your ear, that’s the accuser of the brethren, and he wants to bring up your sin. He wants to bring up where you fall short. He wants to bring up that you haven’t quite deserved to have that kind of access into the presence of a holy God. And that’s where you have to acknowledge that the greatest deception is to at any point think that I earned my way to that place. So, grace saves me, but then it justifies me, it keeps me, it sustains me, and I can walk into God’s presence and I don’t have to think about where I’ve fallen short. I don’t have to think about where I’ve missed it.
Now, I can repent. I can say, «God, forgive me, cleanse me». But I walk into his presence and God sees me as perfect because he doesn’t see me he actually sees that justifying grace. Then there’s teaching grace, Titus 2:11 says that God’s grace teaches you. This is why we ought to be careful when somebody gets saved that we don’t expect that it’s our job to tell 'em everything that they have to do right before they reach the backdoor. It’s not like they get saved by grace and then get all their teaching before they get to the parking lot. Just like you, they have access to the teaching grace. Come on, you remember, little sinner, kept Messing up, kept Tripping up, right. You don’t wanna admit it, but you didn’t get it all together over night, but God’s grace is there to do what? Teach you. Teach you what’s acceptable, what’s unacceptable.
It’s there to teach you what’s right, what’s wrong. It’s there to teach you how to say no to those things that are not God’s best for your life. And God’s grace is teaching you, educating you, coaching you, training you, getting you ready for whatever it is that God has in your future. And he never stops with all long suffering through his grace teaching you. Or, is anybody grateful that God does not give up on you when you don’t get it the first time? But his grace is there to teach. And then, finally is, what we’re reading about here is the enabling grace of God. This is what Paul found when he prayed three different times for God to remove the throne from his flesh. And the Bible says that God answered every time, «My grace is sufficient for you».
So, enabling grace is when God does not remove the problem, but he actually enables you to handle it. Zerubbabel here is experiencing enabling grace. He has been sent back by God. The door is open for him to rebuild, or restore, the temple in Jerusalem. You might remember that Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, had broken down the walls of Jerusalem, destroyed the city, including Solomon’s temple. The Bible says, «There was not one stone left on another».
So, it had been completely flattened out. This entire city had been completely flattened out, including God’s temple. And now, God wants to rebuild the city, but before he sends Nehemiah and Ezra to go rebuild the walls he send Zerubbabel back to rebuild and restore the temple first because this is a picture of how God restores. He restores everything or anything, when we put him first. God could not restore the rebuilding of the walls or the rebuilding of the homes, or the rebuilding of the businesses until first God was put back in his rightful place as first.
So, the beginning of restoration is a priority thing. Is God first? If God’s not first, then he cannot begin to restore your life. But if you put him first, if you begin to say, «God, I’m going to focus on you in this area of my life. I don’t know how you’re going to restore, I don’t know how you’re gonna rebuild, I don’t know how you’re gonna pull all this back together but I know my response is to put you first, make you the priority, then God can begin to restore».
And so, he does this, Zerubbabel puts God first. He begins to restore the temple, he lays the foundation. Really, it’s just beginning, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a massive, the Bible calls it a great mountain, appears. And he’s looking at this mountain. He’s trying to do what God’s called him to do, but he’s unable to finish it because this mountain, this gigantic obstacle, this great problem that’s in front of him, which is a picture, mountains are a picture of our problems in the Bible. They represent things that many times we deem as immovable. They stand between us and God’s promise. They stand between us and the places that God’s calling us. And we know where God’s calling us we’re just not sure we can get there because of this natural barrier or obstacle in our life.
And so, Zerubbabel looks at this mountain and he asked it a question. Which, I like the fact that he talked, he had a conversation. He had to speak to his mountain. He had to know, «Mountain, who are you? Identify yourself? What’s your name? What am I up against? Who are you? What’s your point? What are your trying to do? How do you think that you’re going to stop me»? And Ezra 4 explains that the mountain was that there were attacks of people that were coming against him that represented the mountain, and that’s how it works. God begins to do a work in your life. He gives you a dream, he begins to do something in your life. And then, all of a sudden, you can expect it as, it’s you’re A, B, C’s with God. It’s simple as, you just learn it right away. It was once they were enlightened, afterward they endured a great deal of affliction.
So, God gives you light, God gives you a dream, God gives you a picture of what he wants you to do, and then boom, the enemy attacks. He attacks, he attacks. He creates questions, doubts, hesitation, uncertainty. All of these things begin to rise against Zerubbabel and Zerubbabel looks at that mountain and says, «Who are you, o great mountain»? And then, he makes a statement. A question followed by a statement, he said, «You shall be made into a plain». In other words, he says, «I can see that you’re this great mountain. I get that the attack is there, I get that this is all coming against me, but I’m seeing how God is going to smooth you out. And it’s not by my might, it’s not by my power».
He’s literally saying there’s not one thing I’m gonna have to lift. This is not gonna cost me one thing because this mountain, God through his spirit, is going to smooth it out. And every now and then those mountains come into your life. And your job is not to stress out over it, not freak out over it, not worry about it, not strive to change it, it’s just to look at it, identify what it is. And then, Mark 11 says you say to that mountain, you’ve gotta talk to that mountain. «I don’t care how big you are, how immovable you seem. You can look down on me all you want to, o, great mountain, but at some point, I don’t know when or how but God is going to smooth you out».
God can smooth anything out. He can smooth any situation out. So, they have outside problems, and then, if that’s not enough, they have inside problems. The Samaritans who are half-Jew, half-gentile, so they’re a part of them kinda, they’re saying, «We’re a part of you, but we’re not with you this time». The Bibles says the Samaritans rose up and said, «We don’t think this can be done. We think that this is an impossibility». Samaritans are the people that have a half-hearted spirit. You cannot reach a city, you cannot do anything great for God if all you have is a half-hearted spirit. I could go back over the years and walk you into the rooms, I wish I could take you there, and I could introduce you to the people along the way who anything that God has done over the years, they said it couldn’t be done. They were sophisticated about their explanation. They were, you know, very much so the spiritually mature at the time.
How you can’t and you won’t, and they had their mountains that they spoke about. «And this is why you can’t, and this is why it will never». But the good news is now I’ve got some years behind me. So, what that means is I’ve got this long line of people over the course of my life. That’s one thing that years gives you. You ca look back and now it’s not a new thing. Now I’m like, «Yup, I’ve heard that before». Now, you can just get in line with the rest of them. Because at some point when God does something, he reminds you of all those half-hearted people along the way who said it could never happen. «You’ll never. You can’t be. Oh, you better not try, you better not put, you better be careful, you better watch out. You better not believe for great things. You better not really go after God in a big way». I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood in the middle of nothing but the incomplete. All around me the unfinished.
How is this gonna happen? Looking at that mountain staring down at me. And I say this because we can all relate of God giving us something but we’re not sure how is he going to finish it? Will he finish it? Will this thing ever happen? How is it possible, how long? If he’s going to do it, how much longer do I have to wait for this thing to happen? And I love that the prophet says to Zerubbabel, «This is how you’re going to get it done». He says, «I want you to go get the Cornerstone, or the capstone,» which in Jewish culture is the final stone that you put in the building project. You have the ribbon cutting ceremony, and then you put the finishing stone in the project.
So, God says, «I know right now we barely even started the project. There’s all kinds of reasons it’s never going to happen. You got problems on the outside, problems on the inside, but I want you to go grab the finishing stone, and I want you to take that», in other words, God’s saying, «I want you to get a picture of it finished. I want you to get», God’s saying, «I’m gonna show you what’s in my mind, so you can by faith take a picture of it being finished so as you’re going along the way and these mountains show up, you’re not surprised by it and you’ve got that picture». You’re not living in the finished yet. You’re not there, you’ve not arrived, but you’ve got the finishing picture for God to pull you through all that stuff. When you don’t feel like you can make it, you get that picture back in your head. You get that picture in your mind.
And so, God says, «Get the finishing stone, Zerubbabel, and I want you to shout at the Cornerstone, 'grace, grace'! I don’t want you to whisper it, I don’t want you to talk about it. I want you to shout, not one time but two times. I want you to shout, 'grace, grace»! Come on, one more time, shout, «Grace, grace». I say this because, again, over ten years ago, they’re gonna show you a picture, I had this last service. But I took this because right now that same rock that we anointed when we dedicated the property that this building is sitting on, we anointed that rock and we shouted, «Grace, grace,» over now the finished that you are sitting in. And I can promise you when I stood in the middle of that field and anointed that finishing stone, there was no way we could’ve accomplished what we’ve accomplished right now. It was impossible.
I was just out there doing something I saw as a 20 something year old youth pastor. That’s all I was doing. I was so foolish. I thought, «Well, I don’t know what else to do. I guess we do this now». No money to build. Not even enough money to get finance to build. All we had was this sermon and that rock. That’s all we had. But we got a picture of it being finished. And not just a picture of it being finished, but it being full. And we anointed it and we shouted, «Grace, grace». My kids, and we taught this church this. We would drive by the property and we would stretch our hands towards what then was just a field, and we would say, «Grace, grace». When we would forget, my little girls in their car seats would say, «Grace, grace».
I kept that stone on my desk, and every service before I would go preach, and back then we had 18 million services. And I would touch that rock with the anointing oil that was on it and I’d touch my head and I’d touch my lips and I’d say, «Grace, grace,» and I’d go preach to the unfinished, to the incomplete. And you say, «Marcus, you’re talking about a building». I’m not talking about a building. We’re the temple of the holy spirit. God doesn’t, it’s living stones is what the Bible calls us, right. Jesus is the chief Cornerstone. He’s the chief living stone. What I’m trying to say is that when God wants to build something, he builds people. Anything we see happening on earth is less about the land and less about the bricks, and mortar, and it’s about our faith to say, «God, we want you to use us. We want you to do something with us. We’re having faith».
We have a picture of young people coming to Christ. We have a picture of prisons, we have a picture of God doing in another region what he’s done in this area. We get a picture of it. We don’t know how. There’s the mountain that’s there, but we have that stone that tells us that God has made things plain one time and now we’re saying, «God, you can make it plain a second time». It’s not just grace one time, it’s grace two times. It’s a double portion of his grace and we shout, «Grace, grace». And that’s the same stone because I thought we would put it somewhere in this building to announce that we’re finished and we’re done. And yesterday God told me, «Get that thing out of a closet because that was not the finishing stone for this project. That thing won’t be put to rest until you’re put to rest because God is not done. He’s not finished. There’s more buildings to build».
You say, «What is it about a building»? It’s about the people. This place filled with young people every week. Oh, you don’t have to care about it, but I remember when it was incomplete and nothing, but we had faith to picture that God by his grace would finish the work that he’s begun. Look at your dream, look at the marriage, look at that body that’s filled with disease, your finances, and involve the grace of God today, involve grace, enabling grace. I don’t know how he’ll do it, but by his grace he’ll enable you.
So, Zechariah went on to say, «The hands of Zerubbabel began this, and the hands of Zerubbabel will finish it». So, he said, «This is how you get a picture of God finishing the work that he’s began in your life, you look at your hand,» everybody look at your hands. And now, we’re gonna replace Zerubbabel with your name. So, by the hand, let’s, blank, has started it, and the hands of, blank, will finish it. Look at your hands. And when I get to that place, that blank, I want you to put your name in there, your family’s name. By the hands of Marcus, by the hands of the mecum family. Say it. By the hands of, put your name in there, I’ve started the work. Look at your hand, you started the work. And by these hands he’s going to finish it. Your end is not going to be one that’s incomplete. Your end is not going to be one where you talked about it, but you never saw it finished.
In Jesus' name we speak the grace of God over the work of your hands. Let everything your hands touch prosper and succeed. Let that business, let that dream, let that career, let that family, every area the enemy’s raised a great mountain in your life, we declare God is going to make that thing plain. He’s gonna smooth it out. And we shout, «Grace, grace». Come on, one more time, can you shout, «Grace, grace,» with me? Thank you so much for spending some time with us today. We’re trusting that God’s word, as it does, made a difference in your life today. And we’re just here to be a blessing to you. We’re here to serve however we can.
If we can pray with you, they’ll communicate that. If you wanna share with us your story. It always means so much when we get the letters, when we hear about what God’s doing in your life so we can begin to think about you and pray with you, more specifically. And so, please, call us if you need prayer today, and know that you are very important to us. More importantly, you matter to God. We’ll see you next time.